[HARPER'S BLOG] Windows Media Center Edition

[horndude]

well, from the other OS you can use to do the same things and do it for free, MS is getting some decent competition

tomshardware.com had a decent comparison awhile back, so have a few other websites

its probably easier to set up winXP MCE than linux at first, but linux has way more options and once setup it just plain works.........and works quite well, solves the security and file format problems for certain

Mom and Pop enduser arent gonna have an easy time setting it up on linux though I can attest to that, ive got years of experience with it and took a few days working on it off and on to get it the way I wanted.........but there's also tons of choices to make and lots of apps to try. In the end I ended up using a few scripts that I wrote and used MPlayer which has become the standard for video in many OS's not just linux..........take a peek inside many video apps for windows and you will likely see stuff from the linux world like MEncoder and FFMPEG, just compiled to run on windows. I tried some windows stuff recently only to find this out........dvdauthoring tools, encoders, ripping tools, etc etc.......almost all had .dll's based on code for linux written in C with the cygwin .dll included !!!

WinXP MCE has already gotten you stuck with the proprietary formats you have to deal with in video files, this stuff is native to linux these days cause it has to be.........I havent found any files lately that MPlayer wont play or re-encode into something else. Classic case of a company screwing itself with proprietary apps and formats. Once setup, upgrades or patches to linux are usually quite easy as well, and sometimes in windows they are too, sometimes they arent.......precompiled binaries setup for the lowest common denominator has issues. Windows still has the advantage with drivers for hardware, but linux has been making big gains in that area as of late, still wise to do some searching and checking before buying anything that's for sure.

 

[EricB]

I don't have any problems with it. it's is being intergrated into vista, because too many people complained about it

MAC is copying off of it.

I even have the 71.84 driver for nvida cards. I have the ati card driver too. it's on a mediacenter center special cd that I have. I can upload them if you need it.

if you buy a certified capture card like NVTV, it will come with a universal dvd decoder. My nvidia pure video encorder will play anything within media center, but WMP won't play burnt dvds or dvd files from the hard drive (you need install power dvd or windvd to play burnt dvds with media player), even though the MCE dvd player will.

you can buy a media center extender for 200.00 (buffalo has a better one as it has a dvd player on it and plays every video file) and stream your music, pictures and video anywhere in your house

SOFTWARE
AppleÂ’s Front Row comes close to computing from afar
Monday, November 21, 2005
Rob Pegoraro
THE WASHINGTON POST

Now that the computer industry is nearing the end of its decades-long quest to ensure that nobodyÂ’s nose is farther than 3 feet from a monitor, some companies are moving on to a more difficult goal: Letting you use the computer from across the room.

About three years ago, Microsoft took a stab at that goal with its Media Center Edition of Windows XP. This ambitious, creative release added a simplified, large-type interface that could be used from the couch via a remote control, but it went nowhere in the market. ItÂ’s done a little better recently, as manufacturers have begun leaving out Media CenterÂ’s most glitch-prone feature, the ability to tune into and record TV broadcasts.

Now Apple is making its own attempt. Its Front Row software — standard on the updated iMac G5 desktop introduced last month — offers a different, radically simpler form of computing from the couch.

Media Center comes with a long list of features and options, but Front Row does only four things: You can play music, look at your photos, cue up a DVD or watch video files stored on your hard drive or online. And its remote control consists of just six buttons.

That’s what you’d expect of Apple’s products. Where most of the computer industry trudges on under a banner of "more" — more processor speed, more expansion ports, more stickers on the front of the computer — Apple’s mission statement amounts to "less." It is one of the few companies in the business that understands editing — how the discipline imposed by having to remove yet another button, menu and toolbar can yield more useful products.

The iPod might be the best example of that. In Front Row, Apple has given us an interface obviously modeled after its category-defining, competition-crushing portable media player. With that lineage, the results ought to be a breakthrough hit. But they’re not — at least, not yet.

Front Row certainly starts off right. Take that tiny remote _it even looks like a flattened iPod shuffle _ press its "menu" button, and the image of your desktop pulls away in a slick, animated transition, replaced by four icons floating over a black background: Music, Videos, DVD, Photos. Selecting each one brings up a simple, easily readable list of whatÂ’s available to listen to or watch on your Mac. Under Music, you see songs, playlists, Web-radio presets and downloaded podcasts organized in iTunes. The Photos category offers the albums and collections set up in iPhoto. VideosÂ’ reveals programs downloaded in iTunes as well as movie trailers hosted on AppleÂ’s own site. And DVD, obviously enough, presents whatever movie is in the iMacÂ’s CD/DVD drive, with basic commands _ "play movie," "chapter list" and so on _ presented in a plain, text-only list thatÂ’s easier to read from across the room than many DVD menus.

The remote’s buttons function like those on an iPod. Its central play/pause button sends you one level deeper in any screen, while the menu button takes you one level back. The forward and back buttons scroll up and down lists of content — and as you keep one pressed, you scroll faster and faster, just the way an iPod’s click wheel whirs through song lists.

But Front Row leaves out functions that have been standard on iPods. It lacks the iPodÂ’s on-the-go playlist function to bring up a set of songs. It doesnÂ’t highlight podcasts you havenÂ’t heard. It doesnÂ’t preview the photos in an album as thumbnail images you can browse; instead, you can see your photos only as a slide show.

Front RowÂ’s music component is missing two features of iTunes. When you tune in to an Internet radio station _ as long as it provides an iTunes-compatible format, usually an MP3 stream _ it canÂ’t display the title and artist of the current song, even though iTunes will. And it canÂ’t accompany playback of any song with the cool visualizations that iTunes generates. Instead, the screen stays fixed on the title of the song, along with an image of its album cover, if available.

The last issue with Front Row is that it

runs on only one computer.

The iMac, available in $1,299 and $1,699 configurations, remains one of the best home computers around. But for all the iMac’s appeal, its screen — either 17 or 20 inches wide — is still too small to dominate a living room, the place for which Front Row is best suited.

While Apple works to fix the defects and fill the blanks in this software, it also needs to put Front Row on more of its computers — and in particular the Mac mini. That machine is cheap and small enough to be a second computer, and it includes a digital video output that connects to many high-definition TVs.

When you can show off your vacation photos on a 42-inch plasma screen, a program such as Front Row will be a much easier sell.

 

[EricB]

I have over 600gigs of hard drive space, yet most of it is full with my MCE goodies

http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?pn=016-P1-NVTV-TX

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0214916

 

[Tyler1989]

Thats alot of Internal driver are some external?

I do not like Linux but I do see it having potential but I think the installs are easy just like windows but untill there are full GUI instalers for everything it will not catch on not to many people are willing to use the command line for everything now a days.

The last media center edition was 2005 now all it's features are including in Vista I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Will people use the features or will it be just extra garbage loaded onto the already large Install DVD.

 

[EricB]

xbox can play the files too

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1892679,00.asp

 

[Osiris]

Hey now i have both. Romance and time on TF.

Lucky you....last time I had my exgf here, all she did was botch at me for being on here all time...now she is gone and im on here 24/7 it seems like

 

[Tyler1989]

xbox can play the files too

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1892679,00.asp

Very true but you can do with a normal XP at least some of the features.

 

[EricB]

Very true but you can do with a normal XP at least some of the features.

but I don't need a computer in the basement anymore, that where the kids play. I don't have to worry about them breaking the computer, plus they can play game with the xbox

 

[EricB]

Very true but you can do with a normal XP at least some of the features.

but I don't need a computer in the basement anymore, that's where the kids play. I don't have to worry about them breaking the compute either, plus they can play games with the xbox. it's hooked up to the stereo down there too. I don't need a computer next to that stereo